Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Claudio Abbado, Sigurd Brauns :: Mozart: Mass (K 427 in C Minor)

Mozart's "Mass" Appeal

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 10/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Known for having elevated the symphony and the opera to popular levels in his lamentably short life, Mozart was also substantially involved in sacred music. Among many smaller works for solo chorus and for combined choral/orchestral forces, he composed an enormous seventeen settings of the Latin Mass, of which this is his last. But this C Minor mass, which is said he composed in 1782 and 1783, was never really completed in a way Mozart found satisfactory, and thus it has been up to others to put this work into coherent form. The recording here is based on the reconstruction done by Salzburg composer and musicologist Helmut Eder; he worked on the "Et Incanatus Est" section of the Credo, as well as the concluding Sanctus and Benedictus sections. The work is still Mozart's, and is scored for a fairly substantial orchestra: one flute; pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns, and trumpets; three trombones; timpani; organ; and the full string compliment, plus four soloists and chorus.



Bringing all this together would be a massive task for anyone, and on this recording made in December 1990, that task falls to Claudio Abbado, who was then in his second full year as the music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, having taken over for the departed Herbert von Karajan. Both Abbado and the Berliners are no strangers to Mozart, and the proof is in this large-scale recording, featuring a distinguished ensemble of vocal soloists (Barbara Bonney; Arleen Auger; Hans Peter Blochwitz; Robert Holl), and the Berlin Radio Chorus. Maintaining the Berlin Philharmonic's ultra-high standards of performance would have challenged even the best, but Abbado manages it with style, staying true to Mozart's intentions and helping to bring back to prominence a choral piece of the composer's that sometimes stands in the long-shadow of the Requiem and thus is less familiar to audiences. As a rare and somewhat unknown Mozart piece, this Great C Minor 17th Mass is well worth seeking out."